this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2026
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I remember years ago reading about some test where participants lived in a house next to a phone mast. For the first week the phone mast was off, then the next week they turned it on. In the second week a bunch of people complained about getting sick and one person even had to leave. Then it turned out they’d never actually turned it on, I guess to prove that these people were idiots.
What an asinine statement under a comic about the placebo effect.
People can be idiots for forming a firm belief that something can be bad for them when all evidence and expert opinion contradicts it, even whilst due to the nocebo effect that firm belief leads to them trully feeling bad.
There isn't idiocy in feeling actual effects due to nothing else than a placebo or nocebo effect from than a strongly held belief, whilst there can be idiocy in the way one gains a belief so strong was that it actually triggers one of those effects.
So the example given by the previous poster does seem to fit a situation of people who are indeed idiots.